Katniss ' Camera
by cameraprincess
Summary: AU. There are no Hunger Games, Peeta and Katniss are Seniors in High School. They are getting ready for College. Throw in Gale, a camera and bread...
1. Chapter 1

Katniss POV

I looked up from my desk when I heard the voice. His voice. A voice that I had been able to pick out of a crowd for years. I could feel it again, the faster tapping of my heart, my hands starting to sweat, my mouth becoming dry. It's really stupid to even have these issues. I have never once really spoken to him. I have never even stood within five feet of him. But he changed my world forever. And I owe him so _much. _

_I was ten years old, my dad had just been killed in a trucking accident, my mother, who couldn't function without my dad, went into a state of shock and was very much a breathing vegetable. My five year old sister looked at me with tears, not knowing what caused all the sorrow, or what had happened to all the happiness that we had had. _

_We were starving, the money from dad's company that was given to us after he died, was gone. The cabinets were bare. I had no idea what to do. I was only ten, I had only a few times gone out with my dad when he would hunt, I knew how to use a bow, he made sure of that. But I had never been out on my own. Besides the woods were much scarier alone, than with your father. _

_So I walked, with hunched shoulders and angry hunger pains in my stomach, to the town, where hopefully I could find something or someone to help me. I had just reached the bakery, when it started to pour. It felt like buckets of freezing water were being dropped on me. It was horrible. _

Even now, thinking about it, I get goose bumps and shiver.

_That's when I saw him, it was like he was an angel, I don't know if it was the water in my eyes, making my sight bleary or if it was the overwhelming feeling of being starved that made his golden hair look like a halo. All I know is that I was sitting there, leaning up against a tree in his back yard, hoping, that if I were to die, that I would go quickly. To him, staring at me from the doorway, turning quickly, hearing a shout and a loud thud, then seeing the angel throw two loaves of steaming, hot, slightly burned bread over to me, then disappearing. _

_It took me a moment to realize what he had done, that there were two loaves of bread, that were getting a bit wet, waiting for me. I hurriedly ran to grab them, stuffing them under my shirt and running home. Where I fed my mother and my sister the warmest meal that they had in months. _

Since then, I have overcome my fear of the woods, I hunt, and we always have some sort of hot meal. My mother, after a year, went back to work at the pediatric center here in town. We are far better than we were seven years ago. Mom helps around the house when she's home, she pays the bills, keeps us with clothes on our backs and food in our stomachs. It had taken awhile for us to be where we are today. But its better. There is some happiness that has found its way back into our home. And Prim is always smiling.

My friend Gale likes to think that he was our Knight in Shining Armor. Because I met him not long after the incident with the angel. He's the one that would help me hunt in the woods; he was there to hunt for his family. Eventually, his mother and mine became good friends and his little brother and Prim hit it off, and now they are inseparable.

But I know who our Knight is really, and he lives in town, lives in a nice brick home, and has golden hair and ocean blue eyes. The one that just entered my class room and set four chairs over from me. My angel. Peeta.


	2. Chapter 2

Peeta's POV

"You need to start filling out college forms." My dad said after my mom had left the dinner table. I just rolled my eyes, I was so tired of this conversation. But my dad wanted better for me than what he had. He wanted me to get away from District 12 and get an education, see all of Panem and not come back to a poor mining town, only to be a baker at a small bakery.

"What about mom? You know how she feels about me going off to college." My mother, I think hates me. My two older brothers were her favorites. I came along, after she decided she was done having kids. She had no problem with them going off to school, or have any problem when they brought less than desirable women home and then decided to come back and live with them, when they screwed up their lives. No, she let them do whatever they wanted, and took everything out on me.

"Forget about your mother, you're going to go. I've been saving money for you for years. I want you to go. You deserve to make something for your life." I knew that he wanted me to go bad but I didn't know that he had been saving for it. My mom did the finances in our household, heck, she wore the pants in the family. So for my father to go completely behind her back, I knew that I would have to do this, if not for me, then for him.

"Fine." I said, "but let me think on which ones, I still have the rest of this year." I was in my second month of my senior year of high school. That would give me enough time to find a school that I would like. Even though, the thought of living in District 12 for the rest of my life and being a baker didn't sound so bad, if I could have the one thing in my life that made my day brighter, just seeing the owner of the chocolate brown braid at school made me sigh with happiness. If only it weren't so difficult.


	3. Chapter 3

Katniss POV

"So what do you think?" I asked Gale, holding up the latest picture I had just printed. We were at the school library, sitting at the computers.

"It's good, Catnip." He said, leaning over and pushing a strand of my wayward hair back behind my ear. "You're a natural." He grinned.

I looked at the picture in my hand; I really wish that it could have been printed on photo paper. The deer, in the shot, looks at me, not sure if he should be scared of me, or just ignore me. Once he heard the slight click of my camera, he sauntered off to a stream, leaving me with a beautiful shot.

I found my dad's old camera in a box in the garage a few years ago. There was a card still in the camera that had pictures of the wildlife in the woods. That's when my love for pointing a camera, instead of a bow, became apparent. Now I never leave the house without it. I have so many notebooks of printed out pictures, like this, that I have taped or stapled into old school folders.

It helps me forget sometimes, of the awfulness of my life, and it helps me feel closer to my dad. I even work at the small portrait studio in town. I really don't like taking those types of pictures, posed seems boring and unnatural to me. But I do this so I can save up to buy a really nice camera someday.

I would have had it already, but I take most of my check and put it in a savings account for my sister Prim, she wants to become a doctor when she's older. So my little nest egg will help her pay for school.

"You should really show these to someone, Catnip. You never know, but you could start selling your prints. I mean some people love this stuff." I smiled at him. He was always encouraging me to go a step further. "Maybe even enough to go to that school for photography in district 4."

"What would you do without me?" laughing, I stood up, picked my camera up and placed it around my neck, letting it hang there as we left. He knew me too well. If I had the choice and the money, I would be going to that school.

We were walking around the corner when I suddenly crashed into someone, causing me to slip and fall onto the pavement. I didn't hear my name being called by Gale, and I barely heard the smooth, honey voice of my angel, asking if I was okay.

No, the only thing I heard was the horrible crunching sound of what I knew was my precious camera. My eyes were closed tightly, I bit my lip and clutched my hands into fists. I didn't want to see, to confirm, what I knew in my heart, had happened.

The one time, I'm actually touching, breathing the same air as Peeta Mellark, I'm dying inside. My camera is dead, and he, my angel, killed it.

Peeta's POV

"Crap! Way to go Mellark." I heard the gruff voice of Katniss' best friend, Gale say as tried to help Katniss up. It really wasn't my fault, it was all of ours, none of us were looking where we were going, apparently, or all this could have been avoided.

I watched as Katniss stood up, not looking at me, nor looking at the ground. "We can get it fixed, I promise. It doesn't look that bad. In fact, I think it gives it character." Gale was holding something black in his hand, it took a minute to register in my mind what it was.

A camera. My heart fell, as I looked at its cracked lens, how it was in two pieces, instead of its normal one. "I'm so sorry, Katniss. I didn't mean too." I was rambling, I know. I was, but the look in her face, her eyes, it told me that I crush the one thing that she was proud of, the one thing that was hers.

"It's fine." She mumbled as she picked up what was left and headed in the direction of the Seam. Gale glared at me. "Get some glasses, bread boy." And trailed behind Katniss.

I hung my head and walked in the direction of my home, I knew it was only a camera, but it was her camera, and I had a part in breaking it. I had seen a few of her photos around the school, they were really good. She had an eye for seeking out beautiful things and it was apparent that she loved doing it.

I felt like a heel, the onetime I actually come into contact and talk to her- albeit forced to, I destroyed a part of her happiness. So much so, that the one part of happy –future dream- will never happen.

"What's wrong son?" my dad asked me as I entered the bakery. I decided to go and talk to him, rather than go on home. He always seemed to know what to do.

"I broke Katniss Everdeen's camera." His eyes lowered at the mention of this girl. Back in the day he wanted to marry Katniss' mom. She ended up marrying a truck driver and my dad got my mom.

"I didn't know that you hung out with her."

"I don't." although I would like to, but I didn't say that. "I ran into her, she fell, the camera fell, both suffered and now I'll never be able to talk to her, she will hate me forever and I feel like a murderer."

"It can't be that bad, besides she will get another one."

"You know she won't be able to afford another one." I looked at him glumly, fingering the small pile of flour on the counter, he hadn't cleaned up yet.

"We'll what will you do about it?" he asked, sizing me up, trying to find the part of my brain that held the ideas. But at this point, with all the talk about Katniss, with seeing her in my mind, there isn't any hope of thinking of anything else.


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you for your comments and for reading! It has been a very busy week...so sorry for the wait :)**

Katniss POV

I stared at my camera, one of the few joys I let myself have. It was in pieces, and my angel had a part to play in that. It wasn't his fault, really, he didn't mean to, but why did it have to be him?

Gale had tried to fix it, but you can't glue glass together and expect it to look and work as before. He promised he would try to find a way that I would have a camera. But neither one of us could afford one. He said that he'd take extra shifts at the factory to help pay for it, but I told him no. He worked enough already.

So I put it in a box and shoved it under my bed and headed to school.

"You will need to start filling out forms for college applications and scholarships." My first hour teacher, Mr. Cinna, or Cinna, as he told us to call him, said. He began passing out the stacks. College. I guess it wouldn't hurt to fill it out.

I grabbed a pen and started to read over the paperwork he gave us. I was about to write me name, until the amount one semester would cost. There was no way that I could afford to go to school! I had Prim to think of. She was the one with the dream, she was the one that would go to school and become a doctor.

I turned my attention to Peeta, he not once looked at me, I could barely make out a bruise under his left eye. I wonder why his mother beat him this time. And what with? I should be mad at him, for killing my camera. But really it isn't his fault. So I just stare at the back of his head, thinking of how he would make a great looking model.

I guess he either felt me intense stare on the back of his head or, he just had to turn, but when his blue eyes hit mine, they darted away faster than a speeding bullet and his face turned a shade of pink.

At lunch, Madge, my only other friend, besides Gale, asked me when I was going to take her pictures. She had a major crush on some guy, she wouldn't tell me who, she was too embarrassed at what I would think. I could have told her my guess, which was Gale. She always asked about him and wanted to know everything about him. It was kind of gross.

"My camera is broke." I said, just as Peeta started to walk over to our table, something he never did. Before Madge could comment on what I said, Peeta sat his lunch try next to mine and set down.

I just looked at him, I'm pretty sure my mouth was hanging slightly open, because Madge was making a weird face at me and hitting her chin. So I swallowed, "Um, hi Peeta." I was the first one to speak, he was just sitting there, looking at me, with puppy dog eyes. And again I wanted to have me camera and take some pictures of him looking like that.

"I'm really sorry for what I did to your camera." He cleared his throat. "I wasn't paying any attention, I was actually thinking about you, when we ran into each other." He smiled briefly.

"It's fine, it was an accident, and I wasn't paying any attention either." He was thinking of me? That was kind of weird, why would he, Peeta Mellark, the angel of the town, be thinking of me? The girl from the Seam?

Madge was still staring at Peeta, like it was so weird that anyone other than us were allowed to sit at our table. We never had to worry about it, Madge was the Mayor's daughter and really rich and nobody wanted to have anything to do with her. Me, on the other hand was a loner and super poor, nobody wanted to hang around me, because I was not a very talkative or nice person.

"Were you able to fix it?" he asked, pushing food around on his plate. I looked at his green shirt, he was really good looking, and this color only made him look better.

"Um, no. It can't be fixed."

He closed his eyes and sighed, "I am sorry." He sounded defeated. "Let me make it up to you?" he asked, his intense blue eyes staring into mine. I blinked, hoping he couldn't read what I'm sure was written there.

"You don't have to, its fine really." As soon as I said it, I could tell it was a waste of breath. He was shaking his head no, "No, I really feel bad. I know how much it meant to you."

How did he know? I secretly wanted to ask. The bell signaling class was about to start, buzzed, and he was out of the lunch room before I could say anything else.

Peeta's POV

"Can I take a few more shifts this week?" I asked my dad when I got to the bakery.

I could tell he wasn't shocked when I asked this. "Sure, son, Mace, wasn't going to work his anyways." I don't know why they continue to schedule my oldest brother, all he ever does is sleeps and eats.

"Thanks. Do we have any orders to fill, or can I work on something?" it was the afternoon, so all the baking was done in the morning. Usually all that's left is the decorating of the cakes.

"Nope, everything is done." He said with a knowing smile. I haven't told him my plan for replacing Katniss' camera, nor have I told him about my plan to get to know her better either, but dad has always had a knack for figuring out my plans.

I head over to the stack of cakes and pull out a small rectangle, this one would be perfect. I start to chop, and add and mold, frost the cake black and paint the details with silver frosting. It looks perfect! I grab the tube of hunter green frosting and write out a message. Carefully, I place it in a small bakery box, then call our young delivery boy. I gave him the address and watched as he headed to the other side of town, and then I waited.


	5. Chapter 5

Katniss POV

"Hey Katniss, you got something today." My sister Prim shouted at me when I got home. I headed to the kitchen, along the way throwing my backpack in my room. "What is it?" I asked, slightly curious. I never get anything, except for those stupid letters from the capital, which I throw away before I even open them.

On the kitchen table sat a small rectangle shaped box, with a sticker sealing the lid, I saw the Mellark Bakery label on it, and my stomach did a few somersaults. I rolled my eyes at my reaction to Peeta's name, it was starting to become an issue, I didn't have time to date, I didn't want to get married. I have Prim to take care of. I do not need this distraction!

I carefully opened the lid, more out of curiosity than because it was from Peeta- or so I told myself. I gasped when I saw what was inside. "What? What is it?" Prim asked as she came to stand next to me.

It was the perfect match to my camera, although this one smelled like sugar and on the top, written in my favorite color, I wonder if he knew. Was: "I hope that this camera and my friendship can start to help ease the pain I helped cause."

Were we friends? We had only talked, now like three times? I guess I don't owe him anything for the bread now. He gave me bread, and then he helped kill my camera, so I think we are about equal enough now. I grinned. The cake and the thought behind it was touching.

"Should we eat it?" Prim asked in a small voice, barely trying to hide her hunger for something so sweet. We never got cake, even for a special occasion. Prim loved to look at the ones in the window at Peeta's bakery. And telling by this, he must have a hand in the ones that seem to hold real flowers and sparkle with cake dust.

"Do you want a piece?" I knew she did, and I grinned when she nodded her blonde head. She went to go get two plates and forks, while I just stared at the cake. He wanted to be friends? After so long of admiring him from afar, this angel and I were going to become friends. Over a broken camera.

My mom walked in at that moment, seeing the cake box, her eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Whats this?" she asked. I hadn't told her about my camera. She'd been so busy the last few days that she hadn't been home, except to sleep.

"Um, Peeta, made me a cake." I hoped she would walk on, but she came over to look at it more closely.

"How did this boy cause you pain?" her sad eyes looked over at me.

"He, well, um, helped break my camera." Her eyes grew sadder, "It's okay though, I'm saving up for another one."

"I'm sorry, Katniss. I know how much it meant to you." She patted my arm, and headed to her bedroom.

"Well, little duck, we might as well eat it, no sense in making it just sit there." I grinned at her as I cut a piece for each of us.

I had barely taken a bite, when Gale walked through the door, "Hey Catnip! Rory told me that I guy from town stopped by here this afternoon. I got um nosey." He laughed and looked at the box. His smile faded when he saw whom it was from.

"He was apologizing, again for what happened to my camera." I'm glad that I had just eaten the word friendship. For some reason I don't want Gale to know that part.

"So he thinks that a sugar camera will replace a real one? What a cheapskate!" he growls.

"Oh, come on Gale, it really wasn't his fault, it was an accident, and cameras are very expensive. He didn't have to make this, but he did. You need to lay off on him, he's only trying to be nice." I scowl at him. We have at least one argument a day.

"Well. Fine. But give me a piece." He demanded as he joined us at the table. Prim, being the sweetheart that she is went and got another plate and fork and handed it to me.


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey Guys thank you so much for reading and reviewing. I have no idea how to reply to the reviews…or I would. Also, sorry it has taken so long for an update, but my friend carpal tunnel has made its appearance yet again, so my hand is in a brace, making it very hard to type…hopefully it'll be all better so that I can write some more **

Peeta's POV

I didn't see Katniss for the next three days, I took shifts during the day at the bakery, my dad didn't like that I was missing school, but I told him it was just all review, and that I already knew what I need to for the test. So he let me work.

The hardest part was waiting to see Katniss. Did she like my cake? Did she get the message that I wanted to be her friend? Actually, I wanted to be more than her friend, I have always wanted to be more, but I'm to chicken to say anything to her. And it took a broken camera for me to do so.

It was after four when I heard the door's chime ring at the opening of a customer. I smile and was about to say "welcome" when I say Katniss' chocolate braided head walk over to the counter.

"Hey, Peeta." She said as she leaned against the counter. I could smell the piney sent of her and felt it grow warm.

"Hey." I mumbled, suddenly nervous.

"I haven't seen you at school the past few days." She said, her gray eyes looking at me. "I thought maybe your mo…" she didn't finish and blushed.

It's no secret how my mom treats me, but it's still embarrassing. Especially when the girl you love is the one asking you about it.

"No, I'm fine, I just needed to take a few more shifts." I sort of somewhat lied. I really didn't have to take them, but wanted to.

"Oh, okay. Um, I just wanted to thank you for the cake, it was sweet." She smiled. I love seeing her smile. But it's a very rare thing. She really only smiles at Prim, and maybe at Gale.

"You're welcome. And I am sorry ab.."

"If you say that again, I'll have to whack you. I already told you its fine. Let's move on." She says as she leans over the counter now, her head is so close to mine. I want to pull out her braid and let my hands play in that chocolaty goodness.

The chime rings again, announcing another customer; I sigh as Katniss pulls away, smiles and says, "I'll see you later, Peeta."


End file.
